


Love In Good Liquor

by missmungoe



Category: One Piece
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Flirting, F/M, Friendship/Love, Idiots in Love, Intimacy, Marriage, So Married, this is so self-indulgent guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-07 13:38:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14672202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmungoe/pseuds/missmungoe
Summary: Their marriage is like an old vintage—enduring, sweet on the tongue, brewed with laughter, and liable to get you cheerfully drunk.





	1. hey ho and a bottle of...

**Author's Note:**

> As a break from working on my longer projects, I like to answer prompts, and writing these two is my happy place. Most of these fics are a bit too short to post as stand-alones, but since there's a running theme of "married idiots being stupidly married" (my writing predilections are entirely too obvious, but what else is new), I thought I'd collect them and post them here, for whoever might be interested in reading them!
> 
> Scenes from a marriage. Set (loosely) within my own timeline for them, ca. Sea Songs verse one and two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt asked for "things you said when you were drunk"

“You,” he said, his voice dropped a notch, curling like a purr on his tongue and slinking slowly down her spine, before the seductive quality was promptly and cheerfully ruined by the goofy grin he plastered across his face, “look a _lot_  like my wife.”

It took effort to keep her smile politely bemused. “Oh yeah?”

“She’s  _very_  pretty,” Shanks said, with surprising decisiveness, given how his voice slurred over the words.

“Is she now?”

He sighed, long and longing. “Yeah.” Then, and with the weight of admitting a great secret, “Even prettier than  _me_.”

Makino suffocated her smile with her fist, and cleared her throat. “That sounds like quite the compliment.”

He squinted his eyes a bit, peering up at her. “You’re very pretty, too. A lil’ blurry, though. No ‘fence.”

Makino glanced towards his reading glasses, tucked into the pocket of his shorts. “None taken.”

Shanks grinned. It slanted, lovingly if a little drunkenly along his mouth. “Want to hear about her? I can tell you the story of how we met. It’s very romantic. She told me to piss off. But nicer. She’s nice. Also really pretty, did I tell you? She’s got eyes that are  _this_  big.” He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, then held them up for her to see, his expression amazed. “It’s  _crazy_. Who has eyes like that? ‘S not even doe-eyes, ‘cause does don’t have eyes  _that_  big. She’s like one of those weird deep sea fish, yanno, with the bouncy thingy on their heads? But prettier.  _So_  much prettier. Did I tell you how we met?”

“We’ll be here a while,” Ben spoke up, sliding them a look from over the rim of his glass.

Shanks waved him off. “Shut up, Ben. I’ll do the abr—abri—”

“Abridged?” Makino supplied.

“Abr— _that_ version. Thank you—kind but slightly blurry miss. You’re very helpful.” He watched her, a frown having furrowed between his brows now, before he told her, gravely, “I hope you’re not trying to get into my pants.” He made a broad, sweeping gesture to himself, and Makino quirked her brows, but kept from mentioning the entirely unbuttoned shirt hanging off his shoulders, and the sash that was barely holding on to his hips. It was their first day ashore in three weeks, and he hadn’t had time to shave. He looked, for lack of a more polite term, like a vagrant.

Shanks wagged his brows, and dragged his hand down his chest. “Only one girl allowed to handle these goods.”

Makino hummed, hiding her laugh in the sound. “Lucky girl.”

Dropping his head to the counter, he stifled a sound into his elbow. It sounded like a sob. “I miss her. She’s so  _nice_.”

She patted his back. “I’m sure she misses you, too.”

He didn’t lift his head, and the next words were muffled but hopeful. “D’you think she does?”

She sighed a laugh, and looked to Ben. “Help me carry him to bed?”

Ben glanced at his captain, half-sprawled across the counter of her bar and well on his way to slipping off his barstool. “Is this where I tell you that it’s not the first time I’ve gotten that exact proposition? Although with a very different implication.”

She slapped him with the dish-towel, her laugh loud and startled. “I hope for your sake the answer was _no._ ”

“For all our sakes,” he corrected, as he got out of his seat.

“Ben, I’m very flattered, but I’m a married man,” Shanks slurred, as Ben hoisted his arm over his shoulder.

“Duly noted, Captain.”

He made for the stairs, half-carrying, half-dragging him along, and Makino fell into step behind them, shaking her head as Shanks’ lolled, before he caught a glimpse of her.

“Hey,” he laughed, startled and delighted. “You look like my wife!” Then in the same breath—

“D’you want to hear how we met?”

 


	2. what's mine is yours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not an answer to any particular prompt, but I had the very real urge to write Shanks wearing a pirate-y headband.

“What,” she asked, the word escaping her with a breathless laugh, “is  _that_?”

His expression was completely wiped of guile, which usually meant there was quite a bit of it waiting in her immediate future. She’d never met anyone so skilled at feigning innocence—whilst simultaneously assuring everyone within a ten foot radius that he was anything _but._

“You’re always telling me I don’t dress like a proper pirate,” Shanks told her, features positively boyish with delight. “It was either this or a peg leg, and I’m already missing an arm—I think a wooden leg would have been overkill, even for me.”

Eyes narrowing, Makino peered up at the bandanna, before she blinked. “Wait a minute, is…that one of  _mine_?”

He flashed her a grin, eyes alight with shameless thievery. “Is it? It goes so well with my hair, I didn’t even question it.”

She touched the navy blue fabric, mouth pursed with a startled smile. Drawn over his brow and tied at his nape, it bared his face, and left his hair curling under his ears. He was right, the colour did make it stand out—and his scars, blood-bright to the dark, muted blue, the topmost edges of the grooves disappearing under the cloth.

Catching her staring—“And?” he asked, tipping his head sideways, a gesture that usually had his hair falling into his brow, but the headband kept it back. The sight did a strange thing to her stomach, an old feeling made breathless and new. “Looking past the brazen pilfering of your belongings, what’s the verdict? I even thought of adding some earrings. You know, to go with my new, appropriately swashbuckling look.”

Her mouth worked. “You look—”

His grin widened, endearingly hopeful. “Utterly ravishing?”

“—different.”

It fell, and so spectacularly fast it prompted her own to lift in turn, banishing her earlier surprise with a laugh.

Smiling past his pout, she brushed her fingertips along the headband where it wrapped over his brow, before letting them sketch the curve of his cheek, to cup it. “It’s not a bad different,” she amended softly, tilting his head gently to consider him, stroking her fingers lightly through his beard.

The corner of his mouth quirked, a softer kind of pleasure creasing his eyes now. “No?”

Taking in the all-too telling gleam in them, her brow furrowed, and, “You think you look really good, don’t you?”

His smile widened to a full-blown grin. “Are you kidding me? I look  _exquisite_. I have no idea why I didn’t think of this before!” He gestured to himself. “It highlights my face, which everyone knows is my best feature, second only to the rest of me. I even faxed a few pictures to Headquarters, with a polite request to update my wanted poster. I had four copies for them to choose from, one from each of my best angles.” He grinned. “I haven’t heard back yet.”

“Just a shot in the dark here, Boss, but I think the navy has more pressing matters to attend to than your vanity,” Yasopp slipped in, sauntering up to the bar for a refill, although realising her attentions were otherwise occupied, went behind the counter to help himself.

“I can’t hear you over the midlife crisis those dreadlocks are screaming at the top of their lungs,” Shanks shot back. “Who’s the vain one here?”

Yasopp’s response was quick—and cheerfully crude, which only had him laughing; Makino felt it under her hand, having slipped down to rest over his collar, bared by his half-open shirt. And the overall change was small, nothing new but the headband, but the effect of the full ensemble was curiously…striking.

“So,” Shanks said then, and she blinked, gaze dragged back from where it had fixed on the headband, only to find his grin sitting, wide and delighted on his mouth, even as he asked her, “On a scale from the bermudas I wore to our wedding to the tragically short-lived porn stache, how badly do you want me to take this off?”

She knew even without his smile that she couldn’t have hoped to pretend at being unaffected if she’d tried, and so she only leaned past him to grab her serving tray, and, “Leave it on,” she murmured the words under his ear, before extracting herself, smooth as water and slipping through his fingers when he reached for her, laughing.

And, “Just the headband?” Shanks threw after her, a familiar challenge that nipped at the skin of her neck like a parting kiss, and which expected to leave a blush, no doubt; the colour part of her own, comfortable trappings.

But his eyes widened at the look she slipped over her shoulder, a paradox of demure obscenity in the flash of a quick,  _lewd_  smile. Something of his for her to wear, but pilfered in her own way, stolen kiss by kiss from the intimate knowledge of how it was shaped, of the width and the curve of it when it sat on his lips. A pirate’s smile; a criminal offence in and of itself.

And not all pirates looked the part, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t, if she felt like it.

 


	3. still more storms to brave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt asked for "the way you said 'I love you', as we huddle together, the storm raging outside"

“Feels a little like being out at sea,” Shanks mused, the foreboding rattling of the walls seeming to punctuate the statement, the wind offering its lament with another toss of water against the window. It was impossible to see beyond the rain, the freak storm like something native to the New World. “Although usually when we’re at sea and I’m naked and drinking, it’s just me alone in my cabin. Company-wise, this is a vast improvement.”

Makino hummed, bare feet picking their way across her bedroom to where he was sitting, a bottle of whiskey dangling from her fingers. She’d pilfered his shirt, a single button holding it together. She wasn’t wearing anything else. “Lonely, were you?”

“Tremendously,” Shanks said, grinning. “But I get by.”

“Get by?”

“I’m  _very_ adaptable. And creative.”

She laughed, the sound soft and tender under the assault of the sea. “You like to advertise that. I’m surprised it’s not painted on the sails of your ship.”

“Well I’m a walking advertisement for staggering adaptability. Have you  _seen_ this?” He gestured to his left side, his brows raised. “One arm, and  _still_  one of the greatest swordsmen in the world _._  Ambidextrous, too. You don’t see Hawk-Eyes advertising that, but with good reason. Not that he’d ever admit he couldn’t handle his sword with his non-dominant hand. And  _yes_ , I’m being lewd when I say that.” He winked, and catching her trying to stifle her laughter, dropped his voice in exaggerated mimicry, “‘My blade requires two hands, Red-Hair. I am more than  _proficient_.’ Am I still being lewd? I don’t know—you’ll have to ask Mihawk.”

When he was done, she was laughing so hard she had trouble standing, an uneven but languid grace to her steps as she covered the last of the distance between them. Shanks didn’t know where she’d found the whiskey, but doubted she’d gone downstairs for it, dressed like  _that_ —his crew was there, her bar offering better shelter than his ship.

He made a show of reaching for the flask as she approached, but when she got close enough, stole a touch up her bare thigh instead, quick, thieving fingers slipped beneath the shirt to seek her warmth, and her laughter leaped, loud into the muffled quiet, the whiskey in the bottle sloshing against the glass, before she settled herself between his legs where he sat, his back to the bed.

Eyes glancing off the bottle in her grip before lifting back to hers, “Are you planning on sharing that?” Shanks asked, but when he reached for it, found his attempt gracefully thwarted.

Holding his gaze, she put the bottle to her lips, and tossed back a generous mouthful, but the breezy demonstration was promptly ruined by the way she scrunched up her nose and  _coughed_ , spluttering, whiskey dribbling down her chin, and his laughter this time was louder than the storm.

“God. Look at you,” Shanks said, reaching up to run his thumb across her bottom lip, before bringing it to his mouth, sucking off the drop of whiskey. “You’ll seduce me out of my pants at this rate. Oh—wait.”

She stuck her tongue out, primly ignoring his dirty grin, and the way he wagged his brows. Her voice was still a little hoarse when she spoke, a cough still clinging to the back of her throat. “From experience, it doesn’t take much for me to seduce you.”

“I see you trying to be glib about my libido, wife, but from where I’m sitting you’re just complimenting yourself. Not unwarranted, because it’s true—all it takes it you.”

Whatever she’d prepared to counter his remark fled—Shanks read its departure on her face, in the slackening of her smile, before Makino ducked her head, her attempted composure slipping, his unprompted candour leaving an almost goofy expression of delight. His grin widened, his chuckle a satisfied purr as he leaned down to kiss her neck where she’d settled against him, her back to his chest and her knees pulled up, caged between his legs.

The storm outside hadn’t ceased to draw breath, an onslaught that continued, loud and relentless and seeming only to worsen in temper as it went on. It was unlike anything he’d ever experienced in East Blue, but then gentle hearts could surprise, Shanks knew, feeling the steady beat of the one under his hand, his arm having sneaked across her waist and under his loose shirt, wanting the soft skin there, and the shape of her.

From the bar below rose a muted murmur of conversation, drowned by the sea, by the howling wind and the drum of the rain against the roof.

“If we really were out at sea,” Makino said then, head tipped back against his shoulder and her eyes raised to the window, the world beyond it obscured, nothing but water and glass, “what would we be doing?”

He allowed the hum to sit on his tongue a moment, hiding his grin against the crown of her head, her long hair in lovely disarray, dark against her bare skin and his rumpled shirt. “In this weather? I’d probably be holding back your hair while you retched.”

She pinched his side, her reaction instantaneous, as though she’d suspected something of the sort, and he roared, startled and laughing, but instead of denying the suggestion, “ _After_ that,” Makino said. “What would you show me?”

His smile softening, there was no cheeky suggestion now when he spoke, seeking the image he wanted, conjured with the ease of having been sought many times before—salt in her hair, the orderly sleekness coaxed into tender chaos, wild from the wind, and her cheeks kissed with a sunburn and darker freckles.

“I would show you,” Shanks said, nose nudged into the hollow of her throat, eyes closed and his smile curving along her skin as he pictured it, “what it feels like standing at the bow, sailing straight into the heart of a cyclone.”

He heard her laughter, the soft hum where it rose from her chest under his hand, cupped around her breast. When she spoke she sounded breathless, “Sounds dangerous.”

“Hmm, I don’t think you’d need to worry.”

“Because I’d have you with me?”

He grinned, kissing her shoulder where his shirt had slipped down, before releasing her breast to run his knuckles down her ribcage, hearing how her breath hitched. “Yes, and because we’d have  _Ben_ , if something went really wrong and we both went overboard. Although with how much I annoy him on a daily basis, given the choice to save just one of us, he’d probably save you. So would the rest of the guys, now that I think about it. It’s shameless favouritism if I ever saw it, so I’d be the one at a disadvantage, really. I’ve been telling you a mutiny is imminent, but this way, at least they could all pretend it was an accident. So you’d be fine. The safest you could be, I wager.”

It was meant to be teasing, but the last remark held a note of truth he hadn’t planned for—or that she’d expected, given how she stiffened. And it wasn’t a subject they’d touched in a while, taking her with him when they set sail next, but even implied, the longing to do it wasn’t easily missed, sitting loud and clear in his voice—in his whole body, half-wrapped around her.

The wind wailed along the roof, clawing on the walls, and even cheerfully naked he felt suddenly exposed, like he’d admitted to something he hadn’t banked on telling her—not now, possibly ever; the worry that seized him sometimes like a rip current, that she wasn’t as safe in Fuschia as they all liked to imagine.

Shanks felt her relaxing then, sinking back against his chest, one of her hands coming up to curl around his wrist, gripping it, and, “I don’t know about that,” Makino murmured, the implication just as loud, sitting in her loose-limbed posture and the protective cage of his body around her, but it was wholly deliberate this time, meant for him to hear, and even knowing it was more for his sake than her own, he couldn’t help the smile that sprung, wide and startled across his face, before it softened.

And it had been said many times between them, in words and in touches, quietly and loudly and with half-coherent murmurs, as close as their bodies could get and with a sea of distance between them, but, “Hey,” Shanks said, the word pressed to her skin, beneath her ear, safely hidden from the fury of the storm; from the world beyond her bedroom, and the two of them. It felt new, speaking it. It always did, with her. “I love you.”

Makino tipped her head back, seeking his eyes. And gone was the fleeting image of salt in her hair, the sunburn and the darker freckles, but what remained was a sturdier truth, and no less striking—her hair still wild, if not from the wind but from him, and the quiet heart of the storm beating under his palm, ever-steady and easing the worries from his shoulders as her smile quirked, small and soft and knowing, and the words offered back, bright in her eyes.

“I would be  _so_  seasick,” she said then, and he laughed, tightening his arm around her waist and startling a wheezing one from her chest, nearly toppling the bottle of whiskey as they sprawled, a tangle of limbs and laughter across the floor. And there was no deck tilting beneath them but there was no longing for it as he anchored himself in her; in her calm presence and pliant body, the words repeated into the crook of her neck, cheekily, tenderly, but each time a little new.

It always was, with her.

 


	4. songs for safe harbours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt asked for "the way you said 'I love you', over and over, till it's nothing but a senseless babble". The featured sea shanty ('Moored to Her Port') by yours truly, is from my fic Tethered to Kinder Shores.

It was the first time he’d come back to her injured.

She’d known the moment he caught her, stepping off the gangway as she’d come running; had heard the note of strain in his laughter as he put her back on her feet, but he’d kissed away her concerns before she could voice them, insisting it was  _nothing_ , just a scratch, and his own fault to boot. And she wasn’t convinced, but bore it with stubborn dignity the first few hours they were ashore, enduring their good humour with a tense smile as she listened to the cheerful retelling from more than one voice, each offering their own version of events (”these rookies aren’t kidding around! we told Boss to take it easy, but you know how he gets when he’s had a few”), all the while pretending she didn’t feel on the verge of throwing up.

Shanks noticed, but for her sake, pretended he didn’t, and it wasn’t until the others had retired and it was just the two of them left that Makino allowed her composure to slip, along with the breath that felt like she’d been holding it for too long, and part of her wanted to  _laugh_  at the fact that she could endure months without word and not falter, but a few hours of having him at her fingertips and she could barely focus past the sight of the bandage peeking up from the severe slit of his open shirt.

“You’re too old to be this reckless,” she said, reaching for the buttons where he’d taken a seat on the bed, and was relieved when he didn’t point out how badly her fingers were shaking.

“Yeah,” Shanks agreed over a laughing breath, wincing as she helped him out of the shirt. “I forget sometimes that I’m not twenty anymore. It’s hard to remember when you age this well.” He smiled, a gently deprecating thing, but his eyes still gleamed, tellingly clever. “That kid got lucky. It was mostly my own fault—you know how giggly I get when I drink brandy. Can barely hold my sword right.” When it still didn’t budge her smile, his own softened. “He had a change of heart, by the way. Asked to join.” It brightened to a grin, sheepishly pleased. “I think I scared him a little when I got serious. Ben’s got him cleaning the deck until further notice. Good lad. Nervous bladder, though.”

Makino didn’t look at him, fingering the shirt in her hands and trying not to stare at the bandage wrapped around his waist, aware of the note of tension between them, a rarity in and of itself, but then—

“Want me to sing?” Shanks asked, grin widening when she  _huffed_ a startled laugh, the tension dispelled with her breath. “Come on!” he laughed, spurred by her reaction but the sound too low for his usual volume, too tender to be anything but hers. “I’m grasping at straws here trying to cheer you up.” Cocking his head to catch her eyes, she saw as his own creased. “I’ve been at sea two months. You’ve missed me seducing you with dirty songs. One song in particular, I’ll bet.” As though to prove his point, he tested the familiar melody, and despite herself, Makino felt her cheeks warming.

“Don’t,” she warned, still laughing as he reached for her, rough fingers wrapped around her shaking ones, the tune sitting a little firmer on his tongue now, the low baritone of his voice rumbling over the melody.

“How does it go again?” he murmured, kissing her neck, the shirt hanging from her fingers, still clenched under his. Loosening her grip, she felt the fabric slipping to pool at her feet, and his smile when he asked, “Something about an erect mast and dropping my anchor in your port?”

“You know how it goes. You’re the one who wrote it,” Makino murmured back, smoothing his hair away from his brow, fingertips lingering on the scars, and the words were on the tip of her tongue— _it was a lucky rookie this time, but what happens the day it’s someone stronger?—_ but stilled, halted by his voice, laughingly wrapped around a familiar verse _—_

“ _Booze and water are naught but dregs…_ ”

Tears gathering in the corners of her smile, her shoulders hunched forward, followed by the rest of her, until she stood, half-perched in his lap. She felt his laughter rising from his chest, and the grin that sought her mouth where she’d rested her brow against his, before he kissed her wet cheek and quipped, “ _I’ll quench my thirst between her legs._ ”

It wasn’t sung with the vigour he usually gave it, the murmur of his voice too soft for that, too low to be meant for any ears but hers, and when her breath shuddered out he just hummed the rest, every lewd wordplay and euphemism, until she’d unclenched her shoulders and her fingers had stopped shaking, cupped around his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he said, smoothing his thumb over her knuckles, before turning his head to kiss her fingers. “I’ll be more careful in the future.” He didn’t elaborate, but then she already knew what he meant; knew  _who_  he meant, like he knew it was what she’d been thinking about. “Forgive me? I could sing to you some more. I’ll even include a lap dance this time, if it’ll help my chances.”

A laugh blurting out, Makino shook her head, and her forgiveness came in three words, said once, firmly, then against his mouth, a little softer. Then again, and again, repeated like a refrain, over and over, the verses unspoken and no melody to accompany them, until there was no sense to the murmurs, just the tender rhythm of her voice, and the truth, which never really needed saying, with them.

“So,” Shanks mused, running his hand down her back, lips curving under hers. “Is that a ‘no’ to the lap dance? Because I’ve been practicing _—_ ”

She kissed him before he could finish the offer, smothering his laughter, and the tender dregs of the dirty shanty that still lingered in it.

 


	5. bottling secrets (with way too much whiskey)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt asked for "things you said that I wasn't meant to hear"

She was easily the most delightful drunk he’d ever met.

The pale constellation of freckles across her nose stood out, the tipsy blush warming her cheeks making all of her seem brighter, her eyes wet with a persisting, tellingly giggly laugh, and the smile dancing along her mouth told him she was well on her way to being happily shitfaced.

“Okay, I think you’ve had enough,” Shanks said, frowning at her glass, which had contained a single finger-width when he’d last looked at it, but which now measured at least three—and his, not hers. “Wait, who poured you another one?” He glanced down the length of the bar and the pirates seated there, brows furrowed in laughing warning as he sought to root out the culprit, only to be met with guileless smiles, although they were doing a terrible job at hiding their delight.

“I poured it,” Makino announced, the gentle cadence of her voice louder than it usually was, and adorably slurred. “I can do that,” she said, when Shanks looked at her. “I can pour my own drinks, Shanks. I— _hic_ — _own_ this bar.” For emphasis, she threw her hand out in a beautifully un-coordinated sweep, as though to gesture to the room. He was mildly surprised she didn’t accidentally slap herself in the face.

“Yeah?” he asked, with a burgeoning grin. It was a feat tempering it when she looked so  _serious_. “Well, since you’re the proprietor, and a responsible one at that, I feel it’s my duty as your most valued customer to inform you of a certain troublemaker in your establishment who’s had a bit too much to drink.”

She hummed, leaning her elbows on the counter. “Troublemaker?”

He leaned closer, until their noses were almost touching. “She’s ridiculously cute,” he said, and watched as her grin brightened, wide and goofy as she caught on. “It’s unfair, not to mention ten different kinds of distracting. And she’ll convince you she’s innocent as anything, but don’t be fooled.”

She tilted her head, some of her hair slipping over her shoulder. He’d stolen her kerchief earlier, and had the vague suspicion that he might he wearing it. “I’ll have to keep an eye out,” Makino mused. “She sounds dangerous.”

The grin he flashed her was feral, and making no apologies for it. “Oh, you have _no_  idea. But you should know…”

She tilted her chin, and he caught the scent of her hair, sweeter than the whiskey on her breath. Her eyes were hooded, dark as the bottom of the sea. “Yeah?”

Ducking his head, he sought her mouth, but instead of kissing her, grinned, and said in a cheerful half-whisper, “She can’t hold her alcohol for  _shit_.”

She drew back, mouth pursed with a startled smile, and he recognised the spark of defiance in her eyes even before she declared, “I’ll take that challenge.”

Shanks laughed, before he saw her reach for the glass. “Wait, n—”

Before he could steal the tumbler from her hands, she’d tossed the whole thing back in one gulp, halting his warning on his tongue. His gaping expression was echoed on the faces of those seated at the bar, surprised by the smooth demonstration, as everyone knew she threw back a shot with far less grace than she poured one.

He watched her throat as she swallowed, and the kiss of moisture that remained on the pert bow of her lips, looking redder than usual, like the roses in her cheeks, and for a moment he forgot what he’d even meant to say.

Makino put the empty tumbler back on the counter, a single brow raised to counter his surprise as she swept her tongue across her lips. And she maintained a convincing expression of staggering ease for exactly one second, before her smile broke it to pieces, her nose scrunching up as her whole face contorted with a loud and endearingly unflattering snort-laugh.

“I hope you’re proud,” Ben said, tossing him a look from over the rim of his own glass. On the other side of the bar, Makino was clutching the counter, giggling. “You’re the one who taught her to down a shot.”

“I’ve never been more proud in my whole life,” Shanks sighed, laughing as he rose from his seat to move around the bar, where Makino was still laughing, and trying to hold herself up.

“No, no, no,” she said, and tried to bat his hand away when he reached for her. “I’m still good for another one.” She grinned, and crooked a finger at him. “Here’s a troublemaker for you, sailor.”

He laughed, a terribly fond sound as he bent his head to kiss her brow. “My drunk little weirdo. Let’s get you to bed.”

He got a giggle for that, before she fell against him, her arms thrown about his neck, and with a  _look_  that prompted entirely unfair thoughts, quipped, “Aye,  _Captain_.”

“Oh, she’s doing the pirate bit,” Yasopp mused. “That’s four-drink Makino talking. Haven’t seen her since you got hitched, Cap.”

“Five by my count,” Ben corrected.

Yasopp grinned. “That’s one drink from drunkenly reenacting scenes from her favourite books. Last time she did that she dozed off halfway through and ended it on a cliffhanger. I still don’t know what happened to the vicar’s daughter and that lusty sailor.”

“Pour her another one!” someone called. “We want to know how it ends!”

“You’re already dressed the part, Boss!”

“This lusty sailor is a little busy at the moment,” Shanks said, laughing as he tried to keep Makino on her feet.

“Avast ye!” she giggled, tightening her arms around his neck when she stumbled. “Booty awaits!” Then with a small, tipsy hiccup, announced, her voice dropped with a suggestive lilt, “I’ll walk your plank, pirate. Oooooh,  _hey_ , what’s that song called? ‘Blow the Man Down’?” She looked up at him, and with a lewd little grin, purred, “I’m game if you are.”

Ben coughed, sounding like he’d choked on his drink. Yasopp was near tears, pinching the bridge of his nose to keep from laughing, an affliction that seemed shared between the rest of the bar’s occupants, including the woman hanging off him.

His cheeks ached from grinning. “Come on, scallywag,” Shanks said, arm slipped around her waist to hoist her up, eliciting a startled yelp, and another trilling laugh. “Time for bed.”

“Yes it  _is._ ”

He chuckled, softly marvelling. “I love that you think you’re up for _that._ Knowing how quickly you go from frisky to sleepy when you’re drunk, you’ll be out cold before we’ve cleared the landing.”

“Hmm. We could do it  _on_  the landing,” Makino mused, head lolling against his chest with a contented little hum.

Grinning a kiss to her temple, “Another time, maybe. Preferably when we don’t have an audience,” he murmured, and threw a glance over his shoulder to his crew, the lot of them looking far too delighted, and happily unapologetic about the fact.

He raised his brows, the order silent but followed without question, although he doubted they would have been hard to ask, given the woman in question, and the bar that was as much a home as his ship. She wasn’t the only one who looked forward to them coming back while they were gone.

As he turned for the stairs, he caught the sound of chairs being pushed back, their merry conversation picking up as he heard them collecting plates and glasses. Someone shouted for a broom.

He heard Yasopp whistling the first few notes of  _Blow the Man Down_ , and his laughter when Shanks flipped him off, before helping Makino up the stairs.

They cleared the steps without trouble, her weight easy to bear, and her body warm and pliant. And he spared a small, familiar lament to the fact that he couldn’t just pick her up and carry her, the way he’d been able to once.

She stifled her laughter against his shirt as he steered her down the corridor, bypassing the nursery where their son slept. Shanks made a note to check on him, but he didn’t make a sound, even with his mother’s spectacularly poor attempts at being quiet.

She hadn’t had a drink since before the pregnancy, he realised suddenly, and found a possible explanation for her abrupt nosedive into cheerful inebriation, at least aside from the fact that she was a notorious lightweight.

“ _Shhhhh_ ,” she giggled, as one of the floorboards creaked under their weight, although her exaggerated whisper was arguably louder. “You’ll wake the baby.”

“I think only one of us is in danger of doing that,” Shanks said, laughter letting slip a soft curse when she stumbled across the doorstep to their bedroom, nearly taking her with him.

His delight persisted as she scrambled to stay upright, her laughter breathy and her hands wandering, down his back to curve over his ass, before slipping under the sash around his hips, seeking to tug it off.

The floor not as precarious as the staircase, he bent his knees, his arm reaching beneath her to lift her up, surprising a small shriek from her as she wrapped her arms around his neck to hold on, stifling her giggles into his throat.

“My landlubber,” he chuckled against her hair as he moved towards the bed, feeling how she fit against him, her weight light on his arm and her laughter shaking her body. “You’ve got the worst sea legs I’ve ever seen, and that’s on solid ground.”

Makino didn’t protest the statement, just hummed another laugh, and, “Here we go,” Shanks said, easing her onto the bed. She made another little humming sound as she sank against the mattress, her eyes fluttering, heavy under the shadows that veiled the room.

She fumbled with the buttons on her blouse, and he reached to help her, kissing her bared shoulder as he slipped her arms from the sleeves and earning a drunk little giggle for his troubles, before she inclined her head, baring her throat to his mouth.

“You’re making this a lot more difficult than it has to be,” Shanks laughed with a kiss to her collarbone, and tried to remember what he’d been doing when she let her head fall back, pushing her breasts up as she sought his eyes through the dark. When she tugged at his shirt, ostensibly to pull him down with her, he chuckled, evading the attempt and the spell of her eyes, too dark for words. “I’d tell you to stop being so distracting, but I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it.” Turning, he found one of his discarded shirts hanging over a nearby chair, and helped her shoulder into it, buttoning it when her hands fell into her lap, her eyes blinking, weighed down with approaching sleep.

Nudging her until she’d laid down, he took a seat on the mattress, lifting her legs to tug off her shoes and stockings, followed by her skirt, and heard her sigh as she sank against the pillow. “Mmmdizzy. Room’s spinning.”

“Yeah. Five glasses of whiskey will make you feel like you’re out at sea, and not in the fun way. I’m surprised you managed to stay on your feet for as long as you did. And that you’re not in the bathroom emptying your stomach.”

She grinned up at him, seeming pleased with the remark. From the look of her, she was trying to make it seductive, but the silly slant ruined the attempt, although Shanks found it was no less effective as she purred, “Impressed?”

His own laugh was tender as he reached to run his fingers through her hair, loosening a happy sigh from her chest. “Terribly.“ His smile softened. “Although it doesn’t take much for you to manage that.”

Her hair spilled across the pillow, a dark, rushing tide. She usually brushed and braided it before bed, but unlike her other routines, Shanks couldn’t help her with that. Maybe if he’d had two hands, but he didn’t allow the thought to get comfortable, even as he recognised how ridiculous it was. He’d faced harder challenges on the sea without bemoaning his amputation; that it should be his wife’s hair that inspired the most regret was enough to prompt a mildly deprecating grin.

Brushing it away from her face, he asked, “How are you feeling?”

Her brow creased under his hand when he rested it across it, her skin warm, and a light sheen of sweat glazing it. “Queasy. Might have had a bit too much to drink,” Makino mumbled. “Maybe.”

Smiling, Shanks carded his fingers through her hair, before brushing his knuckles along her jaw. “Maybe.”

“I’m up for something dirty if you are, though,” she said, even as she sounded like she was on her way to sleep. “Mmm not very vertical at the moment, but we— _hic_ —can work around that.” She grinned, a little deliriously. “I like you on your knees.”

He shook his head, his own grin dirty and delighted. “Oh, I’ll be reminding you that you said that tomorrow. Repeatedly.” Leaning down to kiss her, “And as tempting as that sounds, I’d rather you were awake to enjoy it,” he murmured against her mouth, finding her responding kiss smilingly careless, and softened with a sleepy hum.

“There’s my girl,” he said, mindful not to rouse her as he pressed a kiss to her brow. “Get some sleep.”

He’d thought she was well on her way to doing just that, but when he drew back, “No,” Makino murmured, brow furrowing as she blinked her eyes open, fingers curled around a fistful of his shirt. “Don’t go.”

He laughed a kiss to her hair, before tucking it behind her ear. She leaned into his hand, and he brushed his thumb across her cheekbone. “I’ll be right back,” he promised. “I’m just going to help the guys close up. I know you hate going to bed without it. And I can still hear Yasopp singing, which warrants some kind of reprimand. Or an accompanying chorus. I haven’t decided yet.”

She made a small sound of disagreement, and tightened her grip on his shirt. “I don’t want you to leave,” Makino said, and his grin faltered, recognising that it wasn’t said out of drunken petulance, even before she murmured, quietly, “Every time you leave I’m scared you won’t come back.”

He opened his mouth to say something, although he barely knew what, but wasn’t given the chance to figure it out before Makino continued.

“I hate it,” she mumbled, the words offered into the pillow, her voice a little slurred, although he couldn’t tell if it was from what she’d had to drink or because she was falling asleep, but then it broke, a crack in it that had nothing to do with either, fracturing with a dry sob. “I hate— _hic_ —being scared all the time. I‘m scared to open the newspaper, ‘n every time someone calls I’m scared it’s about you. I don’t want to be scared anymore, Shanks. And I miss you. ’S not the same when you’re not here. I want you  _here_ , so just don’t—just don’t leave again, okay? Just stay. Please?”

Any teasing retort he might have had ready had fled his mind, and he was left suddenly speechless.

He knew it was the alcohol’s doing, and that she wouldn’t have said it if she’d been sober, even if it was how she felt. And he’d suspected that was the case; she didn’t like him leaving any more than he did, but she’d accepted that part of him the day she’d married him—even long before that, when she’d waited ten years without stumbling. And it had never been fair to ask her to wait for him, a month or a decade, but she’d stubbornly claimed the right to do it anyway, and had never asked him for more, just to come back. She’d never asked him to  _stay_ , already understanding that he couldn’t. Not yet.

Of course, he hadn’t fooled himself into thinking that meant she didn’t wish he would. Maybe even more than he’d thought.

She’d closed her eyes, on her way to sleep now, but the grip of her hand around his shirt remained, and, “Stay,” Makino repeated, the plea so small it broke his heart. “Please. I’ll be enough,” she murmured, so quietly he barely caught it, but the words struck so hard it forced his breath to rush out. “I promise I’ll be enough.”

Wordless, he couldn’t seem to locate his voice—could only watch as she fell asleep, the grip of her fingers slackening around his shirt, but he didn’t move, still seated on the bed, a cold sobriety having banished the warmth her laughter had left in his stomach earlier.

Her last promise lingered like the sting of a slap, and he clenched his hand against the sheets, before reaching for hers where it had dropped from his shirt, tucking his fingers around it, so small it was dwarfed by them.

“You’re enough,” he said, even knowing she couldn’t hear it, but it felt important, saying it, even if it did little to remove the queasy feeling in his gut, left by that small, broken plea. He wondered how deep it had sat, for it to take five drinks to uproot it. The thought left him suddenly reckless, and his next words were fierce, rough and half-desperate. “You’ve always been  _enough_.”

Makino didn’t stir, and he didn’t move to go back downstairs, listening as his crew worked, their laughter rising up through the floorboards, the muted cacophony not unlike the songs of his ship, the haul of rope and sail exchanged with chairs and tables, glasses and plates, but the planks were steady under his feet here, the bed bigger than his bunk, and the small body curled up on the mattress the most telling detail of all, leaving no doubt of where he was.

Shanks bit off an oath, dragging his fingers through his hair. “Damn it.” He looked at Makino, still asleep, her mouth parted slightly and her breaths heavy, betraying nothing but a bone-deep exhaustion. “How long have you been carrying that one?”

Well and truly out of it, she didn’t answer, and didn’t wake as he rose from the bed, although her words followed him out the door, halting him before crossing the doorstep as he turned back to look at her. And part of him thought he should tell her when she woke—to have the conversation they should have had already, the one it had taken her getting drunk to even bring up—even as another part recoiled from the prospect, an irrational fear resurfacing from where he’d buried it; the fear that she’d one day wake up and realise he wasn’t enough for  _her._

He checked on their son on his way down, finding him asleep, and took a minute just to watch him, on his back with his eyes shut, his little arms spread. Above the crib floated a small assortment of ships, although the sight of the cheerful mobile had his heart constricting now, wondering if that was the future that awaited him—watching the horizon, too young and too hopeful to share his mother’s fears.

Touching a finger to a tiny caravel sent it bobbing through the air, steady on imaginary waters, and Shanks didn’t quite succeed in easing off the rueful edge to his smile. Their son was too young to understand now, but watching him sleep, all he could think about was Makino, and the sudden fear that he should grow up to feel the same—that he wasn’t enough, as though the two of them weren’t everything.

“Safe travels, little sailor,” Shanks murmured, bending down to kiss his head. “Here’s hoping your sea of dreams is gentler than your mother’s.”

When he came downstairs it was to find the floor mopped and the chairs stacked on the tables, Ben overseeing the work with a familiar scrutiny, and there was a second where the sight left him staring, curiously arrested.

“That was quick,” Yasopp laughed, from where he’d been busy drying off a newly washed glass. “Either you’re losing your touch, Boss, or I haven’t been giving Makino enough credit.” His smile slipped at bit at the sight of him, a frown pulling his brows down. “Hey. You okay?”

They were all looking at him now, having paused what they were doing, and standing at the foot of the stairs with the bar laid out before him—the one that had always been his favourite, out of all the watering holes he’d set foot in throughout the course of his life; the one where he’d moored his heart well over a decade ago—Shanks found it wasn’t unlike looking out across the deck of his ship, crew and all, although in that moment he’d never missed the sea less, in all the years that had passed since he’d first set out for it.

“The next time we leave,” he said, looking out across Makino’s bar, its captain asleep but her crew gathered, so many now they filled the space with ease and then some, “it’ll be the last time.”

He saw from their expressions that they’d caught on, maybe not to what had been said, but close enough, but before he could follow up with an explanation—to say that this had long been in the cards for him; that he’d decided she’d be his choice years ago, and that it wasn’t the horizon that called to him now—when a single smile broke the spell, followed by another, until they were all grinning at him, and he blinked, the words he’d prepared fleeing his mind.

“About damn time,” Yasopp said, throwing the dish-towel over his shoulder. “Most of us are long due for retirement. I’m just waiting for the day my kid’s bounty will eclipse mine, to put the last nail in the coffin. Figuratively speaking, of course, or at least I hope it is! I’m getting old, but I’m not quite there yet.”

There were several shouts of agreement, echoed across the crew gathered—and one laughing suggestion that insofar as reputations went, Yasopp’s son had long since eclipsed him (“a whole decade on this sea, and you never once got close to having ‘God’ tacked onto your moniker!”), which earned the speaker a particularly crude gesture, and Yasopp sticking his tongue out.

Ben smiled around his cigarette, but his look conveyed more than just amusement as Shanks stepped up to the bar. “Makino okay?”

His smile crooked, not exactly convincing, but then he hadn’t been trying for it. “Three sheets to the wind and due for one hell of a hangover tomorrow, but she will be.” He paused, and then, with more certainty this time, said, “I’ll make sure of it.”

Ben nodded. “Good.” He met his eyes, and Shanks wondered what he was thinking, when, “It’s not wrong, you know,” Ben said, casting his gaze across the room, to where the others had picked up their chores. “Wanting this.”

Shanks raised his brows. “A questionably successful future as a barkeep, you mean?”

“That, too,” Ben said, without missing a beat. He wasn’t smiling now, Shanks saw, but wasn’t prepared for what he said next. “Shanks. You  _can_  have this.”

His extensive repertoire of cheeky quips and comebacks saw fit to fail him completely at that, and what he was left with instead was a mind that felt curiously blank. And he wasn’t given time to look for anything to fill it, when Ben added, calmly, “You’re not doomed to repeat Roger’s fate. It’s not a foregone conclusion just because you’re a pirate with a family.”

Shanks looked at him, feeling suddenly at a loss. It wasn’t the first secret that had been dragged into the open tonight, but he hadn’t been any more prepared to face his own than he’d been to face Makino’s.

But maybe it was high time to face them both, along with the fears that were inevitably wrapped up in them.

“She asked me to stay,” he said, and didn’t look at Ben now as he spoke. The others were still cleaning up, quietly bickering over how Makino liked the tables placed. “It made me think. I’ve always thought of it as a question of whether or not I can.”

“It’s not,” Ben interjected, still with that unshakable calm. Shanks had a thought to wonder if he’d considered this quite a bit. “It’s about whether or not you will.”

Put that way, it seemed so simple. But then maybe it was, and it was only Shanks who’d taken this long to figure out it.

“So?” Ben asked then, when Shanks hadn’t spoken. “What will you do?”

The sound of a glass shattering interrupted whatever he’d been about to say, and Shanks looked towards the bar to find Yasopp cringing at something on the floor.

“Dude,” someone spoke up in the hush that followed, their whisper of the god-fearing sort. “Sweet as she is, if that was one of the crystal ones, Makino is going to _kill_ you.”

Looking at Ben, Shanks grinned, heart lifting up from where it had been weighed down with her confession earlier, an answer found to a question he’d long been skirting, afraid of what he’d find. But he wouldn’t be afraid anymore. Not for her—not so she had to be, for him.

“Given present company’s severe lack of it, I guess I better start learning some barkeeping skills.”

 


End file.
